The history and scope of the sociology of higher education

Abstract

This chapter introduces the second edition of the Routledge Handbook of the Sociology of Higher Education. This handbook covers sociological approaches specific to higher-education systems originating in the United Kingdom and United States, exemplifying the Anglo-American model. This edition builds on contributions in the first edition, identifying three sets of interrelated transformations that swept through Anglo-American university systems during the twentieth century—massification, vocationalization, and marketization. Against the backdrop of neoliberal ideologies taken up by governments since the 1980s, chapters are divided into five sections: (1) historical transformations of Anglo-American education, (2) life in higher-education institutions for students and faculty, (3) inequality and diversity, (4) other major systems around the world compared to Anglo-American ones, and (5) global policies in higher education. It is concluded that the sociology of higher education has the potential to play a leadership role in helping to improve the myriad higher-education systems around the world that are now part of an interrelated set of subsystems, replete with persistent problems and promising prospects.